Advent Meditation~By St. Alphonsus de Liguori (December 8)

[Dawn Marie]

THE MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH

THE INCARNATION

Discourse by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori

December 8, 2014

 

Discourse 9

 

Speed on then with gladness, O ye souls that love God and hope in God, speed on your way with gladness!  What if Adam’s sin, and still more our own sins, have wrought sad ruin on us? Let us understand that Jesus Christ, by the Redemption, has infinitely more than repaired our ruin:  Where sin abounded, grace did more abound.  “Greater,” says St. Leo, “has been the acquisition which we have made by the grace of our Redeemer, than was the loss which we had suffered by the malice of the devil.”

 

Isaiah had long ago prophesied that by means of Jesus Christ man should receive graces from God far surpassing the chastisement  merited by his sins:  “He hath received of the hand of the Lord double for all his sins.”  It is in this sense that Adam the commentator explains this text, as we find in Cornelius a Lapide:  “God hath so given remission of sins to the Church, that She hath received double, that is manifold blessings, instead of the punishments of sin which She deserved.”

 

The Lord said:  “I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly. I am come to give life to man, and a more abundant measure of life than what they had lost by sin.”  Not as the offence, so also the gift.  Great had been the sin of man; but greater, says the Apostle, has been the gift of redemption, which has not only just sufficed for a remedy, but superabundantly:  and with Him plentiful redemption.”

St. Anselm says, that the sacrifice of the life of Jesus Christ surpassed all the debts of sinners:  “The life of that Man surpasses every debt which sinners owe.” For this reason the Church styles the fault of Adam a happy one:  “O happy fault, which deserved to have so great a Redeemer.” 

 

It is true that sin has clouded the mind to the knowledge of eternal truths, and has introduced into the soul the concupiscence of sensible goods, forbidden by the Divine command; yes, but what helps and means has not Jesus Christ obtained for us by His merits, in order to procure us light and strength to vanquish all our enemies, and to advance in virtue?

 

The Holy Sacraments, the Sacrifice of Mass, prayer to God through the merits of Jesus Christ,---- ah!  These are indeed arms and means sufficient, not only to gain the victory over all temptation and concupiscence, but even to run forward and fly in the way of perfection. It is certain that by these very means given to us, all the saints of the new law have become saints. Ours, then, is the fault, if we do not avail ourselves of them.